Whatever Happened to the Good Times?

[bukktown]

I remember 88-92 being like a golden age for video gaming for me. I attribute it more to the fact that I was 8-13 yrs old during that time and genesis came out with these cool ea sports games like lakers vs. celtics. I am guessing that 8-13 yr old kids will feel the same nostalgia for our current video game era 20 years from now.

[fossen]

I think it's us, not the games or the internet.

My nephews give me perspective. A nephew was staying with me, and noticed Madden. He asked about it, then talked about how much he loved Madden.

His version was a few years old, on the Gamecube. His favorite team is the Seahawks, and favorite player was Marshall Faulk. So he'd always trade for Faulk, and create himself and his brother (maxxed out, of course). Then he'd try to get Marshall 300 rushing yards a game.

....

He had a blast because he was treating it as what it is: a toy, a game, a disc of fun.

[boomhauertjs]

Probably as we enter the "real world" as we get older, we expect our games to follow us into that reality. It's too bad that we can't stay kids forever.

I kept stats for Real Sports Baseball on Atari 2600. I made up teams and players (though their names were very similar to the 86 Indians) and kept stats for them on yellow legal pads. I'm sure the stats weren't "realistic", but I didn't care. I just had fun doing it.

[drae2]

Man, the good times. I remember back in 1993 when NFL94 dropped on the Genesis. Me and my girlfriend at the time drove 2 hours just so I could get the game because it was sold out everywhere I went. So I called this Funcoland out past Dekalb, Il (I live in the city of Chi), they had it, and we went and got it. Played it all night literally, and most of the morning before finally going to sleep. Those were the good times man.

[TCrouch]

How could I not mention NHL on the Genesis? What a huge oversight. I didn't even know hockey existed until I got my hands on NHL.

But Joe Montana Sports Talk Football will be something that lives on in infamy with my mom until her dying day. From time to time she'll come over and catch me playing a football game nowadays and she'll still look and go:

"Wow...these things have come a long way since "better...hurry".

I can't even recall how many times I heard that. But even way back then, it had something that so many games seemed to lack; breakaway speed and "if you get beaten there's no hope of making a play". It was just fun to see this gorgeous rainbow pass drop in magically to a receiver in the side camera who would then proceed to race away from the defense. It was never easy to complete, but man that game stole some serious play time from me. Once it shifted to some of the vertical scrolling it lost the luster for me, but the initial sports talk football really did it for me.

[nyisles16]

still got my Genesis with all the goodies.. you hit it right on the head T.. I think that since the world got "smaller" (ie internet, xbox live), the games are expected to be the most realistic games of all time.. I can remember the days of sitting with my bud playing many games of Atari Baseball (the one with just red & blue teams), seeing how many runs we could score.. then came Bases Loaded & Baseball Stars.. Even this extended into my college years , just having the bunch of us having tourneys in the suite room for "bragging rights", or more important, who would be buying the first couple of rounds that night.. I miss those days, where I couldn't care less if this uni was off, or that guy was wearing wrong spikes..

The other issue that took us away from the carefree days are the "fanboys" of a certain product (as far as myself, I buy what I myself deem is good).. By always touting how good something is, most people will listen to what the fanboys have to say.. then after playing, when it doesn't turn out to be the next pot of gold, all the cries come out saying what is wrong with it - & then the expectations & hope that the next version will be better

Man, now I gotta break out some of my Strat-O-Matic games..

[swill43507]

GREAT ARTICLE!!!

LOL!! I grew up with Coleco Vision Football and at the time, It was the greatest thing I ever played!-LOL!!

You had these huge *** controlers that looked like boxing gloves and anytime you had to run or throw the ball you had to spin this dial. And to me and my cousins this was like the greatest thing in the entire world.

I use to use my imagination that my teams was the Chargers and my Cousin's team was the Dolphins. And although the little digital men on the screen had no uniforms, our imagination made the game come alive, as if they were the Dolphins and Chargers. And it might seem crazy but those days were sometimes much fun than these days of Madden and 2k.

But back in the 80's video game technogoly was so basic and so limited that you were happy with whatever you got, especially when it came to sports games.

Today however, you have better technology, more choices of consoles, NFL licensing, internet,internet play and downloads, message boards, review,,..etc... So the expectations are 100 times higher for a better game experience.

[KG]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bacardi151

did that for every sports game i would get my hands on. Some stats were more detailed than others. I remember doing it for tecmo bowl, bases loaded, and first genesis madden. Good times... Great article Terry

Bases Loaded 2 was my favorite game back then. I would keep all of my stats and even played a full season once. Man, I used to hate the DC team with all of the President pitchers and their crazy side-arm delivery. I always struggled vs the side-armers.